Friday, January 31, 2014

One Step Closer to the Truth About Cancer

The following was a current event report submitted by Tucker Duncan. For some reason it was not posted to the blog. I thought it was very interesting and relevant topic, so I am taking the liberty of posting it for him.

It has always been
rumored that drinking out of plastic water bottles can lead to cancer, and new
research strongly backs this point. Men being exposed to low levels of
bisphenol A (BPA) during early stages of development greatly increase the
chance of prostate cancer later on in life. BPA is mainly exposed to young men
through the use of plastic water bottles, being that it is one of the chemicals
used to make these water bottles. Along with water bottles, BPA is found in
paper receipts, the lining of some food cans, and dental sealants, such as the
seal on top of a tube of toothpaste. At the University of Illinois at Chicago,
a team of scientists used stem cells to implant the prostate cells of deceased
young men. One third of the stem cells came from prostates that had cancer at
one point in its life, and forty-five percent of the cells exposed to BPA that
had not previously been exposed to prostate cancer developed tumors. Not only
can BPA exposure affect a young male during his early years in life, but also a
pregnant mother can greaten the risk of prostate cancer for the fetus inside of
her. The scientists believe the root cause of the BPA leading to prostate
cancer is that the chemical affects the stem cells in such a way that they are
not able to replenish the prostate, making it more susceptible to prostate
cancer. BPA also led to breast cancer in rats, but has not yet been proven to
affect humans in the same way.

The
study of BPA levels leading to cancer is very important to the human race.
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancerous death of U.S. men, and
research to expand on how to prevent it is incredibly relevant. Fifteen percent
of men in the U.S. (roughly 24.7 million men) experience tumors on their
prostate at one point in their life. The ability to prevent this would greatly
decrease the mortality rate, and not exposing children to BPA could be a
successful prevention. To live in a world where humans know more about cancer
and how to either cure or prevent it is the dream of young generations right
now. Nothing is worse than seeing loved ones die, but of something that we know
little to nothing about how to cure? That’s not a world I want to live in and I
praise every man and woman trying to fight this.

Overall
I thought this article was beautifully written. I loved how statistics were
brought up about how many men were diagnosed with cancer because those are the
types of facts that really grab a reader. However, I would’ve liked to read
more about how to prevent exposing yourself, or your fetus, to BPA exposure.